The present invention relates to an electronic-component mounting apparatus and mounting method which mount small-sized electronic components on printed circuit boards.
With an electronic-component mounting apparatus in the prior art, NC data on a mounting order has been generated in such a way that an operator reads the X-, Y- and .theta.-coordinates of a printed circuit board for mounting electronic components thereat, and the types of the components from shop drawings or the like, and that the operator himself/herself inputs them manually from a keyboard by the use of a data generation equipment. In addition, CAD data has been sometimes employed for users on the scales of various and mass products. In that case, component data has been transferred directly to the data generation equipment.
Known examples of this type are disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 144392/1987, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 62590/1987, etc.
The prior art is very laborious because the operator himself/herself inputs the mounting-order NC data from the keyboard of the data generation equipment every lot. Particularly in a production aspect of small lot scales and many lots, the operations of generating the NC data are very troublesome, but it has not been considered to save the labor of the operations. Incidentally, when the CAD data in the case of designing the printed circuit board is utilized, the NC data generating operation can be somewhat relieved. However, when the lot scale is small, there is no CAD data in many cases, and this technique is not applicable. Further, even when the X-, Y-and .theta.-coordinates of the component are obtained from the CAD data, precise X-, Y- and .theta.-coordinates on an X-Y table are not attainable and a mounting error is liable to develop, on account of a setting error involved when the printed circuit board is set on the X-Y table.
Meanwhile, with a technique wherein the type of a printed circuit board is read so as to select a mounting datum from within a data file, it is conditioned that mounting data items for printed circuit boards are stored beforehand. The technique has the disadvantages that the labor of preparing the mounting data is expended, and that a printed circuit board for which no mounting datum is stored cannot be coped with.